A blog about world and global music from a guy who co-hosts the KUNM Global Music Show, 89.9 FM Albuquerque/Santa Fe, http://www.kunm.org. I post one song a day, with reflections on the music, life, and whatever else comes into my mind.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Don't Worry About Tetanus: Kila and "Rusty Nails"

I have stepped on more than a few rusty nails in my lifetime, leading to tetanus boosters so that I would not come down with the fabled lock-jaw. Growing up in a rural area, with a father who thought of himself as a carpenter but who was just improvising a lot (and not very successfully sometimes resulting in neighbors and relatives helping out), I often found nails lying around. I imagine that in any rural communities, and Ireland is certainly made up of many rural communities, you will often find do-it-yourselfers who more than a few times drop a nail in the grass and it stays there, slowly rusting, until some child's bare foot finds it or, it happens to sit at just a way that it punctures a shoe.

Today's random tune is not rusty, even though it has been sitting around for 18 years. Kila is an Irish world music and folk music group formed in 1997 in the Irish language secondary school in County Dublin. Their music has been described as breathing new life into contemporary Irish music through their blend of Irish and world music with a rock sensibility. Kila has worked with other notable Irish musicians including U2, Shane MacGowan, Glen Hansard and The Dubliners, and collaborated on the soundtrack to a wonderful animated movie, The Secret of Kells. This song, Rusty Nails, is from their 1997 album Tóg É Go Bog É, and an abbreviated version can be found on the Putumayo compilation A Celtic Odyssey: Dublin to Dakar.